How to Handle Problem People

Do you have people in your life that p… (make you angry)?

You know the ones I’m talking about. It may be your child, partner, colleague, or boss. You think that you have established some boundaries, or the rules seem like common sense, and yet that person seems to find ways to get under your skin – just because they can. 

What’s the deal? Is it something wrong with them, or is it about you?

Maybe it’s a little of both. I learned a lesson about this from the bovine species, a heifer we called Harriet Houdini.

Each year, we buy some year-old cattle to harvest the grass on our small farm. We have friends who buy these animals to fill their freezers with natural grass-fed beef.

Last year, one of the heifers (young female) had the name “Harriet” on the identification tag in her ear. The Houdini descriptor was soon added rather than the other choice words I had for her.

Harriet Houdini was docile but she had a habit of going wherever she liked. If the group of heifers were in one field, Harriet would be in another. I did not see her jump a fence and she never broke one. She either had pogo-stick legs or she figured out how to teleport herself from one side to the other, regardless of the height of the fence.

It was a game for her. She would peer at me through the office window, and clean it with her tongue if I didn’t notice her. She would wander into the garden and eat the peas, lettuce, and corn. If I put her in the corral, she would soon be on the outside, looking at me as if to say, “Ha, ha, ha. Catch me if you can.”

Initially, I got angry. I would get behind her and yell, set my dog after her to chase her, and madly wave sticks at her. I got myself all worked up.

Did my antics help? They got me all stewed up, hot, and bothered. They likely took some valuable minutes off of my lifespan, because physiologically that’s what happens when we spend time being angry. 

Lessons Learned

It seemed that Harriet just wanted my attention. 

• I learned to laugh at the situation rather than fume. After all, she was not putting herself or anyone else in danger.